Anger and Black Humor: How Residents in Regime-Held Syria Are Coping With Shortages

Syrians queue for fuel, January 2019

In one video, a man marries a gas cylinder dressed in a white wedding gown and couldn’t be happier about it.

In another, a well-stocked gas truck cruises through town like a parade float, escorted by a fleet of motorbikes and taxis honking in celebration.

And in a meme shared to Facebook, a mythical god gracefully balances a gas canister on her head. “Gassius,” a caption reads, “the Syrian god of gas.”

Government-held Syria is reeling from an energy crisis this winter, and citizens are responding in turn — not with street protests but with videos, cartoons and memes that are making the rounds online, relaying a population’s frustrations as they go.

Syrians are struggling amid a severe shortage of gas cylinders — used across the country and much of the region to fuel stoves and, in many homes, to keep warm through wintry conditions and freezing weather.

The crisis, which has been blamed on everything from international sanctions and corrupt gas distributors to unusually high demand, has hit major cities stretching from Suwayda in the south to Alawite-majority settlements along the Mediterranean coast, and east to Deir ez-Zor near the Iraqi border.

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About The Author

Scott Lucas is Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham and editor-in-chief of EA WorldView. He is a specialist in US and British foreign policy and international relations, especially the Middle East and Iran. Formerly he worked as a journalist in the US, writing for newspapers including the Guardian and The Independent and was an essayist for The New Statesman before he founded EA WorldView in November 2008.